How To Program the TYT TH-9800 Quad Band Radio

How To Program the TYT TH-9800 Quad Band Radio – this is a quick video that I made to show my readers and customers how to quickly program the TH-9800 radio manually. I sell these radios on my other website, so go check them out at this link. Let me know if you have any questions here.

Hi, I have just received a TH-9800 not from you but from Hong Kong. Can I ask you a question regarding the USB to Serial programming cable which in my case is not seen by my laptop using Windows 7. I have seen some reports that the main ic inside the USB is a fake can you confirm this statement as it is difficult to have a conversation with some one who does not speak English.
Best regards and 73’s from Ian Smith. G8MVV

I’ve heard reports about these fake cables also, but honestly I have never seen one. I am a TYT dealer and I buy all my radios/cables, etc directly from TYT, so I have never had an issue with any cable at all. I would suggest getting a cable from a TYT dealer in your area, or in your country, instead of buying from China. Getting support from them isn’t easy if you are just a regular consumer, so it’s much better to go through the dealer.

I cannot fund ssb settings for 6 & 10 meter operation. I’m also trying to find out how to set up PL & offset for 10m repeater use. I set them like you say in your video but they don’t seem to be working and they don’t show up on the screen like they do for 2m. Please advise.

Hi Scott, thanks for commenting.
This radio doesn’t do SSB, it is an FM-only radio.
The 10M setting is the same as the other bands for PL-tone and offset. It’ll be in the same menus. The offset for some 10M repeaters is different though, so you will need to get that information from repeaterbook or from the repeater owner.
Jason

I bought the TH-9800 and like it very much, but as a side note, the radio is a direct rip off of the Yaesu quad band, and looks exactly like the Yaesu, programs the same, buttons are the same, the microphone has the same buttons, but does not duplicate the look and exact size like the radio does.
In any case, the radio works pretty well. I have had a few quirky things happen, but nothing I can’t live with. One of them is the fact that I can’t program a frequency from the microphone, but sometimes I can. I’m not sure why, and I do know that the radio should be in VFO mode, so please don’t tell me that.
The radio is a great bang for the buck type radio. WE don’t have very many 6m and 10m repeaters in Florida, but as a duel band radio with expanded receive range , it is great.
The box my radio came in had a sticker on it saying “PLUS.Upgraded” Not sure what that meant, but I know that the very earliest of these radios had some things that were fixed in firmware. Maybe someone reading this will respond with what Plus Upgraded means.
Lastly, the USB cable that comes with the radio uses the fake prolific chip in it, so you have to jump through hoops to make it work, and some never get it to work. It’s about the only complaint many people have about the radio, it’;s a shame it had to be about something that could have been fixed for the extra dollar. or two it would take to make the cable with the FTDI, or true Prolific part. The radio will soon work with Chirp for programming, you just have to get the cable to work first.

Yes, the TH-9800 is a copy of the Yaesu, this was known from day 1 when it was released.

There is a lock button on the side of your mic that locks the keypad, are you sure this is turned off? I’ve not experienced this issue with any of the mics or radios I’ve used.

PLUS:UPGRADED means it is the newer PCB board and firmware inside the radio. These were developed to fix some of the issues of the original version.

Lots of people complain about the USB cable. If you get the one that TYT makes for the radio, I’ve never had any issues at all. Sometimes customers will call me, saying it doesn’t work, and 99% of the time, it is their computer not reading the cable correctly or not installing the correct drivers. I use 32-bit Windows 7 and I have never had any issues at all. Just make sure you get the correct TYT cable and make sure your computer installs the correct drivers.

Ditto what you said about the cable. My second TH-9800+ came with a TYT cable. Bought the cable separately from Amazon. Both have the TYT trademark on the USB end. Never had problem one with the first cable (haven’t tried the second ’cause, well, why bother 😉 ) So no problems programming using CHIRP.

I liked the first one so much I bought a second. First one’s in the house; second one’s in the car. I use one of those 4 band antoonas on the roof of the car with no problems at all. Close in on CB most folks can slope detect if I really need to talk to truckers &c; otherwise it just cruises along on 2m & 70cm.

hey is there any word if there is a program like CHIRP for the th-9800? i have the yaesu ft8800 in my jeep but the wife wanted the tyt th9800 now that she has it she is lost on programming and im asking for help

Hi Kyle, thanks for commenting.
No, you don’t need to install the manufacturer software for CHIRP to read the radio. You only need to make sure the cable driver is installed so that the computer will read the radio.
73

Thanks for looking in to the skip when scanning problem. I know it has been fixed in the plus or upgraded model but I can’t find a firmware to upgrade the original to the newer version. So any help would be great. Thanks.

Hi, I recently bought a TH-9800 here in AU. The frequency range seems to be fixed and can’t be changed with the software. The software seems OK for everything else. Do you know of any “lockout” that could have been used to do this and if so, how do I remove it. For example, the TX range upper limit in the UHF portion stops at 470MHz and therefore is “locked out” of our UHF CB band for transmit (around 477 MHz)

I downloaded an older version of the stock programming software for the TYT-TH9800 to resolve the frequency not being able to be adjusted. I now can transmit and receive from 29-33, 66-70, (rx from 70.1 to 88), 135 to 180, 400 to 505Mhz. I am trying to see if I can find another way to get 220 to 250 to work. The older programming software allows it to programme the 220 to 250mhz but there is a constant pulse beep that is heard.

Thanks, found the update for Chirp and can now programme the 9800 with Chirp. Unfortunately, I still can’t extend the Tx range outside the Ham bands. Does anyone have any ideas here. (possibly, a hardware lock???)
Note: The cable I am using, has TYT on the USB end it is NOT isolated. I think that the power supply and the PC were both earthed and there was a small spark when I went to plug the USB lead in. Problem solved by running the 9800 off a battery when connected to the PC.

I just tried the update to eliminate the busy beep. When I followed the instructions in the download step. I got a message wrong Model Number and it locked up. Radio would not power down it was locked up completely. I disconnected the USB Cable (no change) let it sit for about an hour and no change in status. I ended up disconnecting the power supply. Now it appears to be bricked because it will not power up at all. Any suggestions on how to get it back to life?

The same thing happened to my radio when i tried to do a firmware upgrade, any luck getting it back to life?
I have been in contact with TYT and they wanted me to send i back to change a chip, but they did not provide an adress.

When I connect it to the radio and try and use the daily Chirp I get an error that I cannot connect to the radio. This is on WIndows 8, I heard there was a potential USB driver issue, anyone know what I need to do? Step-by-step?

Most likely it is a driver issue. That is usually what people experience with Windows 8. You will need to Google search for a USB driver for Windows 8 for that cable. Windows doesn’t download it automatically.

Jape, maybe I can answer for Kenny…I just had the same thing happen to mine. Last night worked fine this morning no audio on internal or external speaker. I hear one light crackle when turning on the radio but that’s it. No beep, no static, no received audio. I just programmed with chirp last night and worked fine, added a few more repeaters and reprogrammed today. That is when the problem started. I have tried Factory Reset, reflash firmware, and reload previous working chirp .img file. Nothing. Any ideas?

Lock out?
Has anyone had an issue with the front panel/key lock being “stuck” on. I can’t unlock the unit, even when I hold down the left volume knob, it just started out of nowhere. It was initially only unlocking the front panel briefly, it would never just stay unlocked. It is a unit I got from a friend to borrow while studying for my Tech license, and I can’t figure out how to unlock it now.

MY th9800 could RX 29mhz, 50mhz, 500mhz UNTIL i used tyt program software, long before CHIRP had data. Nothing I do will stop the BEEP when on these bands only. been 1.5 yrs now. Ideas? RESET wont fix this. This in NOT v2. if there really is one. Before I used tyt set up, I could and did RX/TX on those bands. I need a deeper reset.

IIRC, the beep is a known bug in the V1 radios. I have a V1 radio and either my beep isn’t as loud as others, or people are just overly sensitive to it, because I don’t find it all that loud or annoying. However, in the V2 model (which does exist, they updated the entire PCB board and I have several in-stock for upgrading V1 radios) this beep is able to be corrected by the software. I have also performed this update for some customers and we removed the beep entirely.
I’ve used CHIRP to program my radio multiple times with many updates. If you are having issues with CHIRP, you should report it to that team as a bug.

I just received a plus version and the beep. Is very loud I have tennitous (ringing in my ears due to the military years) when you say that it can be changed in the software, what software are you speaking of?

I bought this radio a few months back and I hadn’t played with it to much but a few days ago i plugged it in and programmed it because my fleets truck radio’s are starting to die out and need to be replaced. I put in all the CB channels 1-40 as I seen on a couple website’s that display the frequencies.

Now my problem is this and I don’t know if you or someone else had this problem but when i transmit on any of the CB channels it come’s in all messed up and really hard to hear like it’s FM but I have each one set for AM?

Oh yeah, when I transmit on “channel 2 26.97500” I can hear it coming in clear on “channel 1 26.96500” but it won’t come in clear on that channel I’m trying to transmit on. Any ideas on how to fix this issue? If only I could fix this issue I would be buying 5 to 10 more for my whole fleet.

TYT advertises that they lockout the TX function for AM on this radio. Some of the very early models would allow TX on AM, but everything since early 2014 has it locked out. Perhaps they scramble it and it works the way you are describing, but I thought it would just simply not let you transmit. Either way, I don’t think this radio is going to work in the way you are hoping. If you take it to a radio shop, they might be able to look at it, but as far as I know, this feature is by design.

Jason – I’m having problems programming offsets to TH-9800. Using Chirp, I set the necessary shift offsets and +/-, but when I look into the radio, the offsets have ALL been reset to 7.60 MHz. Even when I set and individual memory channel’s offset, and press “SET” to finalize,… then recheck it, it has been reset to 7.6 MHz. Have I got a bum radio?

I have a question that is have been unable to get an answer to. It has 800 memory channels, and then you have the 6 storage areas keys (A-F), but can you store multiple channels on one letter key or is that only for one set of frequencies. So for example, for my location I might want to store 20 channels, but for another location I want to store 10 different channels. This way when I transition from one location to another I could hit one button and load up that series of channels for that area. Does this unit have the ability to do that?

I have the TH-9800.
Unfortunately, from new, (three weeks old now) the audio on TX is woolly, muffled and all but unintelligible!
Contacting the suppliers left me cold, and didn’t want to know. Here in the UK we pay top dollar for everything, twice as much as in the US. It’s a tax thing.

Anyhow. I tried Emphasis on and off and the compander on and off. Nothing works. I, in desperation went as far as changing the electret mic insert to one with a 2k impedance and a .47uF cap to allow some high frequency audio through.
Still the same. Have you heard of this problem with this radio?
Any ideas will be more than appreciated.
73 de Tony g6ypk (Warwick, England)

There is a set of instructions in the yahoo group for this radio on how to build a Yaesu mic that will match the TH-9800. Let me know if you need the link, I can probably find it. That should work for your issue.

Jason, I have the TYT TH-9800 and have followed the instructions for programming the channels. However, with my “fat fingers”, I hit a couple of wrong keys, and I need to delete the info in those channels with the errors and re-enter the correct info, using the same channel numbers. Following the instructions for deleting a channel, in the owner’s manual, does not work. How can I empty out the info in a channel so I can re-program it with the correct info. Also, for some reason, for instance, I enter the freq, offset, etc. and save it to one channel, but, upon checking in the channel mode, I’ve found that there are two or three other channels with the same info saved in them, and I can’t delete them. I don’t need two or three channels with the same info.

Finally, often, my screen doesn’t indicate whether I am in the VFO mode or the Channel mode. How can I tell, short of punching “V/M” and turning the dial to see if anything has changed?

I am having a problem with my tyt 9800 plus model. 9 months old and no audio on transmit or receive. I bought it off Amazon from 365 shopping. They say they they will fix it if I pay shipping to and from china. $100 or more. Is there a repair shop in the USA?

No, unfortunately when a customer buys from a Chinese source to save a few bucks you’re stuck with dealing with your Chinese source for repairs. There are no TYT repair shops within the U.S. that honor factory warranties (regardless of where the radio was purchased). 99% of the actual dealers will only work on radios purchased from them.

There is a menu item that locks/unlocks the face. Most likely your codeplug that you used to program the radio had it locked. Look in the manual and find the keystroke to unlock it – I don’t recall it off the top of my head, but I will see if I can find it this evening.

Just brought this radio and it has the plus upgrade sticker on it. UHF has 25 watts output and VHF has 35 out. Does the low power firmware update apply here? If it does I can down load the rar file but cannot locate any instructions on how to install to radio. Also the no transmit while busy link will down load the driver but the instruction files do not download. Can you help with this?

The low-power firmware is only for those radios that are outputting 1-watt on 1 or more bands. This is for the original version of the radio, not the PLUS model, so I wouldn’t try this.
The no-transmit-while-busy will fix the issue you are seeing there. There are instructions in the zipped file that you can download and extract.

Hello,
I purchased this radio and received it last week. Tried to program a different Rx CTCSS and TX CTCSS for the same channel with no luck. I saw in a previous post that this was not able with this radio. Is there a MOD or FIRMWARE upgrage to correct this? If not what other dual band mobile radio will allow this?

The Powerwerx DB-750X radio has that option, but since it’s used so rarely TYT apparently didn’t see the need for it, yet it is included in their newer TH-UV8200 HT, so perhaps they will include it when another mobile radio is announced. I haven’t looked to see if the newer TH-8600 mobile supports it (yet).

Jason,
Thanks for the video on manually programming the 9800,
very helpful. I watched it several times till I got it.
I now have the correct driver for the computer programming,
and I remember you said 6 & 10 goes on left side.
Does the computer install make the choices,
whether left or right?
Thanks so much.
73 de ka4uqs jerry

You have more patience than most. Unbelievable that so many folks (that purchased their radios elsewhere) would somehow think that you should provide free tech support to fix their various issues. C’mon folks, if you purchased on the web to save a few bucks do your own homework, don’t expect Jason to fix your Amazon or E-Bay purchase.

When you program the radio through software, you must not only fill it the “NAME” option (which is usually the repeater call sign), but also turn on the “NAME” option column, otherwise only the frequency will show every single time.

I just got mine installed in my truck and for some reason I can’t get the 440MHz on the right side. I am using only a dual band antenna which I was told would work fine and not present any problems, but…….

Hi Jason, Great info here. Quick question and I hope an easy answer. 9800 (not +) programs fine with one exception. No PL tone on 2M XMT. PL is fine on other bands, as programmed using tyt sw. The PL tone for our area (127.3) is programmed on 2M just doesnt send it, only plain carrier/voice. Any ideas where I goofed? Trying to help a fellow elderly ham.
73 Karl, WA2KBZ

i just purchased a tyt th 9800 with the plus upgraded sticker on it. programmed wit the latest updated chirp and now it just beeps at me on 446.00 and most of the 400.00 freq. nothing i do fixes this. I’m stuck and cant figure it out what can i do to fix this

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Who Am I?

My name is Jason, callsign kc5hwb, and I have been a Ham Operator in North Texas since 1994.
I created this blog to share my experiences with ham radio. There are many aspects of this hobby that are new and exciting. I'll share my experiences here about them.
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